To the Executive Committee of the German Social-Democratic Labour Party[1]

Written:Written not earlier than March 23 (April 5), 1909. Published for the first timePublished:Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1973,

      Moscow,Volume 15,

      pages380-382.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thearticle headed “The Question of Organisation in the
Russian Social-Democratic Party” printed in No. 79 ofVorwärts(I. Beilage, d. 3. IV. 1909) obliges us to address a
strong protest to the Executive Committee of the German Social-Democratic
Labour Party. On behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party, which has charged us to look after its
affairs abroad, we ask the Executive Committee of the German S.D.P. to give
careful attention to the extremely abnormal situation which has been
created. The Central Organ of German Social-Democracy persistently ignores
our formal statement that a special representative body of the C.C. exists
abroad, and does not print the report about this institution and its
address, which were sent to the paper a long time ago. At the same timeVorwärtsprints a report “From a Comrade” and sets forth in
this report anofficialParty event, namely the Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P.,without giving the official textof the (two)
resolutions of the conference on the question of organisation. By not
giving the official Party resolutions the letter published inVorwärtsgives an entirely distorted version of the disputes
and differences among the Russian Social-Democrats; what is more, the
letter contains a covert factional polemic against the decisions of the
conference. Such a form of polemics is liable more than ever to poison the
already abnormal relations between the groups within the R.S.D.L.P. Such a
form of polemics arouses particular irritation and resentment, while at the
same time makingit more difficult to explain to the German comrades the real state of
affairs and differences within our Party.

Thereforethe Bureau Abroad of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. requests the
Executive Committee of the German Social- Democratic Party to consider the
question of reporting Russian differences inVorwärts, and of
the publication inVorwärtsof articles on Russian affairs,
as well as official communications from the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. and
official texts of Party resolutions adopted by the R.S.D.L.P.

TheBureau Abroad of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P. asks the Executive Committee
to adopt a decision as to whether Party life of the Russian
Social-Democrats can be reported inVorwärtswithout giving
official information from their C.C. and the official texts of Party
resolutions.

Asregards the substance of the matter, the Bureau Abroad of the
C.C. thinks it essential to point out—among the bound less number of
distortions of the truth in this article—at least the following threemainuntruths; to enumerateallthe misstatements would
necessitate the writing of a pamphlet.

(1)Thefirst resolution on the question of organisation adopted by the
conference records the fact that in the R.S.D.L.P. there aretwocurrents of opinion on the basic questions of organisation. In this
resolution the Party condemns the current which is characterised as
“liquidationist”, i. e., in effect aiming at the destruction of the
present R.S.D.L.P. Not only all the Bolsheviks and all the members of the
Polish Social-Democratic Party voted for this resolution, but also two
delegates from the Bund, out of the three Bundist delegates present.

(2)Inthe resolution on the assessment of the present situation,
proposed by the Bolsheviks and adopted by the Party, it is pointed out at
the very beginning that the old feudal autocracy is decaying, making a
further step on the road of transformation into a bourgeois monarchy. The
Mensheviks did not offer any draft of their own but voted against this
resolution, moving the solitary amendment that the word “bourgeois”
should be changed to “plutocratic”.

(3)Therepresentatives of the Social-Democrats of the Ukraine did not
support and could not support the Mensheviks, because there were no
representatives of the Ukraineat the conference. As for the Polish Socialist Party being in agreement with the
Mensheviks, this Party did not participate and could not participate in the
conference, since this Party is not a member of the R.S.D.L.P. The proposal of
the Mensheviks that the R.S.D.L.P. should amalgamate with this party was
rejected by the conference in the form of a motion carried to call next
business.

[1]Themanuscript has no heading. This heading has been supplied the
Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee C.P.S.U.